Bob Heman

When the seal does not wear his skin he is called meat. A welcome friend he is shared by all. There is a saying too when they all laugh together. That we are all meat under the skin.

pub. in CLWN WR

How It All Began

LIGHT

There was light inside of the rabbi’s pocket. There was light fastened to the monkey’s leg. There was light pasted on the door to the refinery. There was light hidden under the baker’s hat. Three lights were found beneath the priest’s cassock. A light that did not work was buried next to the barn. Half a light was drawn by the child with no knees. A new light was rising from inside the book. The man who was found dissected had discovered his own light. They were able to see it on the other side of the valley. As the sky grew lighter no one could remember its old name. They found pieces of light wherever they went. It made them remember every step. They returned the light when there was no one else to share it with.

pub. in The Prose Poem: An International Journal

Demographics, or, the Hats…

OBJECTS

The objects can be moved around without respect to their singular properties. Each can be made to cast a specific shadow that is able to retrieve a memory or two. Their names are not uniformly known. The memories that can be retrieved are often memories of things that happened only in their dreams.

pub. in Antenym

Demographics, or, the Hats…

INFORMATION

The words are real even when they are not true. She lives inside of them once they are spoken. They reveal a distance to those who think they understand. Their real meaning is about the code they contain.

pub in. Action, Yes

what needs to be found

INFORMATION

Each one leads a different life. They inhabit the building, the forest, the marital bed, the written page that stretches to contain these things. Each life separate but finding its resemblance in the others. Each an illusion they can enter at will.

pub. in Action, Yes

what needs to be found

INFORMATION

You may not know as much as you think you know. The room is set on wheels and carries them up the mountain. The mountain is not a real mountain. It hides a machine that resembles a man and a woman who are sort of wrestling.

pub. in Sentence

INFORMATION

Becomes a wolf or a duck or a tiny snake. Becomes a cloud or the ocean or some light that was left over. Becomes a house on the edge of the woods everyone is afraid to enter. Becomes a woman who tells him exactly what she wants him to do.

pub. in “Recent Information” (Fell Swoop 88)

INFORMATION

She keeps a strap in her closet to correct her husband’s bad habits. This is hidden information. He kept a priest locked in his basement for over thirty years. There are animals that will never correspond with the drawings the travelers were given. They are allowed to roam free, even in the rooms where the children sleep.

pub. in Clockwise Cat

INFORMATION

Becomes information once it is written down. Becomes a hat or a boat once it is folded.

pub. in “Once It Is Folded”

2008 Brevitas event book

INFORMATION

The machines discuss you while you sleep. Sometimes if you awaken unexpectedly you can hear a bit of their conversation but it is not something you can understand. Sometimes it is repeated later in your dreams.

pub. in Sentence

INFORMATION

Built with bricks or with wood or with straw or with the bodies of those who did not survive. Built according to the marks on the map or the lines of her face or the trails the animals left behind. Built for the man who had not yet arrived, for the light they thought they could capture, for the trees that were too small to use.

pub in. “Once It Is Folded”

INFORMATION

It is something like a door until it is approached. It is something like an animal once it is opened.

pub in Truck

photo by C. L. Rogers

INFORMATION

Inside of the bear is a man who doesn’t know how to unzip the zipper.

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Bob Heman has been published on every continent except Antarctica. He lives on the west end of Long Island in what was once the city of Brooklyn. His “Information” series continues.